City leader should be ‘embarrassed’ over rat comments
SUSAN Aitken has been told she should be “embarrassed” after saying “all cities had rats” when pressed on cleansing concerns in Glasgow. The council leader earlier yesterday fended off criticism from rival politicians over what some have called an “epidemic of the vermin” on the city’s streets.
During a heated discussion with Conservative leader Douglas Ross, Aitken defended past comments saying Glasgow needed a “spruce up” ahead of a major climate change summit next month and insisted any issues were being taken seriously.
But now the city’s Labour chief has condemned the words from the SNP boss.
Councillor Malcolm Cunning said: “This is yet another gross insult to the residents of Glasgow from Susan Aitken.
“She clearly has no idea of the state of our city, with overflowing rubbish and an epidemic of rats caused by SNP cutbacks to refuse collections.
“Cllr Aitken should be embarrassed, but frankly she has no ambition for our great city.
“Glasgow deserves better than this failed SNP administration.”
As we have previously reported, Glasgow was deemed the third dirtiest local authority in the county by Keep Scotland Beautiful, only marginally ahead of Falkirk and Edinburgh.
When pressed yesterday on incidents where refuse workers had been hospitalised after being attacked by rats – as reported by us – Aitken said: “There has been one, possibly two small incidents where there was a health and safety incident and an employee was taken to hospital for a minor contact with a rat.
“It’s not unheard of that our cleansing employees come into contact with rats.
“All cities have rats.”
She added: “Look at any local paper headlines and you will see similar issues.
“We treat these issues with employees extremely seriously.
“I don’t shy away from the challenges.”
Aitken had said that Edinburgh had been impacted more in terms of cleanliness during the pandemic but nobody questioned its ability to host the festival.
Ross said that both cities were run by SNP administrations.
Aitken said many of the challenges in Glasgow were the result of post-industrial decline and the impact of the policies of the Thatcher Tory government in the 1980s.
As the pair spoke over one another, eventually the chair of the committee, Pete Wishart, SNP MP, had to bring the confrontation between the two to an end.
He said: “We have had enough of this.”